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Florida officer fired over ‘racist’ Snapchat post

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. (WSVN) — A Florida police officer has been fired from his job after he was accused of posting a racially charged photo on Snapchat.

According to Fox 35, 24-year-old Matthew Moriarty was fired from the Daytona Beach Shores Police Department after his supervisors discovered what they described as a racist Snapchat post.

The photo appears to show the officer with drawn on black hair and a beard, along with superimposed graphics of a syringe needle, a police car and a toy gun. The photo had the caption, “THIS IS HOW I CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH.”

Daytona Beach Shores Public Safety Department Director Stephan Dembinsky said, once the department received the complaint and saw the photograph, Moriarty was immediately suspended and eventually fired.

“This was during Black History Month. It was terrible thing to do. It was reprehensible. How do you defend that? How do you stay a police officer, when you go to court and testify against the people that you put in jail, and they hold up this picture and ask how can we believe this is unbiased policing?” Dembinsky said. “Every chief in America is going through the same thing, and we have to weed these people out.”

Dembinsky said investigators are now looking to see if there was any bias during Mortiarty’s arrests and traffic stops.

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